[TR] How hot is too hot?

[Randall]

> This spring, I took the radiator to the shop and he said it 
> was great. I'm
> beginning to think maybe my radiator guy is not so good.

FWIW I had the exact same problem.  I've dealt with this shop for many
years, and rarely had a complaint, but they sure got me this time.  They
twice pronounced the radiator "fine".  On the third round, I insisted that
they "rod out" the tubes and they discovered that the insides were coated
with "mud" to the extent that they could just barely force the rods through.
Afterwards it leaked in so many places that I opted for a new core instead.
All of my cooling problems promptly vanished.

The strangest part is that this was the radiator from my wrecked TR3A, which
had already been recored about 10 years ago and was working just fine before
the wreck.  There was absolutely no physical damage to it, but apparently
just sitting idle for a few years had allowed the coating to build up inside
the tubes; and all my efforts at backflushing, chemical cleaning and so on
had failed to dislodge it.

>  I think maybe my vacuum 
> advance could
> be intermittent could that cause overheating?

In theory, yes.  But a TR3 doesn't run a lot of vacuum advance, and at least
in my experience a bum advance module doesn't seem to show up on the temp
gauge.  I've always caught it because the midrange throttle response seems a
bit sluggish.

-- Randall